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Fang is from China. She is fan of Beijing, Tokyo, Madrid, Sevilla, San Sebastián , mountains, and cold weather.

What she likes most about traveling is you can just look and think into deep silence, without any noise and what fang likes least about traveling is sometimes the weather just doesn’t back you up.

We expectantly arrived at Hangzhou in the evening of Christmas Day and immediately got into my friend’s car. I’d been there 2 years ago for just a short visit (about a couple of hours) so I’m still curious about this city.

It’s about 15 kilometers from the airport to the city’s center. At first there was nothing special, but when we started to cross the Qiantangjiang Bridge I was shocked, because the bridge is really huge!

I was told that there are 6 bridges total above the Qiantangjiang River in Hangzhou, and 5 of them are double-deckers; the biggest one has 6 two-way lanes with a total length of 8 kilometers. The scenery combination of the big river, the giant bridge and the prosperity along the riverside, for me, is just fresh and loveable.

There is remarkable architecture on the river bank worth mentioning. It’s global shaped, if you see it from a far way it’s just like a big shining ball…and this is the International Conference Center of Hangzhou.

The most impressive thing to me about Hangzhou this time is the rich atmosphere of commerce. We kept driving downtown after crossing over the river and the majority of shops I saw were clothing shops. There was no difference between the main roads and small ones; they were totally filled with all kinds of shops. Guess what, it’s easy to know ‘why’ because Zhejiang Province is the biggest wholesale market of small commodities, clothes, silk products, etc. in China. I once heard a notice on TV which said that 85% of the world’s Christmas decorations come from Yiwu, another city in Zhejiang Province. So, as the capital of Zhejiang, Hangzhou undoubtedly is a super commercial city.

We arrived at the hotel at 9:30 pm and we decided to take a walk and find something to eat. We walked along the road behind the hotel but could not find any place to eat. We were told the next day that we went the wrong way, which was the financial street full of office buildings. But finally we found a 24-hour fast food restaurant, so we went in and picked up something simple.

One thing I found interesting was that the bakery beside the restaurant was bustling at 11 o’clock at night. And another thing I was deeply impressed by was that there were outdoor kitchens on the road! They held fire and woks and all the ingredients waiting for business along the road. You could order dishes just the way you like then take them with you; it’s not even a booth, it’s unbelievable!

So that’s our first night in Hangzhou. It was a nice start; the following two days were really great. I can’t wait to share them with you!

Stay tuned for the next installment…